Happy 4th of July!

Sorry for not getting these results to you sooner; it's been a busy couple of days for me. Hopefully, you were able to see your swimmer's individual results on Swimtopia though.

Tough meet against Easton on Tuesday. Actually, they surprised me with how much they improved since last year, and they are stronger this season than last season. Even from their times in their first meet, you can tell they had swimmers who attended against us who weren't in their first meet that filled in gaps they clearly had in their line-up previously. More than that though, Easton swam inspired. In other words, we (GPS) had a lot of best times, but in races in which we should have won or sometimes even have gone 1-2, the predictable swimmer they put in the race dropped significantly more time and won instead. I believe we pushed them there. After being the league champs for multiple seasons in a row, we are still the emotional big "baddy" for other teams, and so they get fired up for us in ways they don't against each other. The theme of the night was that they plugged their weaknesses and better exploited ours. In the end, what on paper initially seemed to be a very close meet turned into a strong win by them. We lost, 307 - 235. For our league, that's not a lopsided score; there are 549 points up for grabs, but it is a solid win for them.

Meet Highlights

• Sammy Tallean: Pre-Race Sportsmanship - Overheard by the coaches telling an Easton swimmer behind the blocks, "I wish you good luck in your heat one race." So formal for ten year old, but spot on. :)
• Kyle Nungester, Zaria Fleming, Luella Visone, Jackson Troutman: Post Race Sportsmanship - Seen by the coaches shaking hands at the end of each of their races. 
• Alex Yatsenko: Team Spirit - For cheering her heart out. :)
• Paige Nungester: Trusting her race strategy & applying her training - In the 100 IM it was neck to neck in the Fly, it was neck and neck in Back, but just like she is trained to do, she pushed hard the 3rd lap, took the lead during the Breast, and went on for the win! Well done, Paige!
• Aiden Vasquez: Drive - After a somewhat slow relay start, he nailed his turn, hit his streamline, came up even, then from the flags in at the finish, he put his head down, did not take breath, drove to the wall, and out touched his opponent in a photo finish with an outstretched arm, just under the water line! Great job, Aiden!

Reminder: We have Friday practice, July 5th.

Sign-Up for the GPS Invitational - This is our invitational, our tradition, so we NEED as many people as possible to sign up. You choose your swimmer's individual events, just leave a note for your order of preference of them, and the relays you'd like to swim in; coaches only make the relays. 

Declare your attendance for next week's dual meets, especially for our home meet on Tuesday against Two Rivers (YES..., we have a good chance to beat them!!) so I can get started on the line-up.

Full Results & Top Times Reports are attached.

Thanks & see you on deck,

Coach Drake